Dec 30, 2023 03:22 AM
(This post was last modified: Dec 30, 2023 03:22 AM by C C.)
https://www.discovermagazine.com/technol...martphones
INTRO: One of the more expensive parts of the cameras built-in to smartphones is the lens system. That’s because lenses have to be made in an entirely different way to the electronic components that make up the rest of the phone.
In recent years, physicists have hoped to change this with a new type of “metalens” that can be carved onto a flat sheet of silicon dioxide or similar material. Metalenses consists of pillars of silicon that are each about the same size as the wavelength of light.
These pillars interact with light, causing it to bend and scatter in precisely controllable ways. So by arranging large numbers of pillars in periodic arrays, physicists can make them bend light in the same way as a conventional lens.
That paves the way for metalenses to be etched onto the same silicon chips that are otherwise used for capturing and processing images. In this scenario, expensive conventional lenses become entirely obsolete.
But attempts to create metalenses using light-based lithography have so far faltered. What’s needed is another way to make metalenses that is compatible with the large-scale manufacture of chips.
Enter Andrew McClung and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, who have demonstrated exactly this — a new way to make metalenses that is compatible with chip manufacture. They say their approach “has potential for widespread adoption in consumer electronics and imaging systems.” (MORE - missing details)
INTRO: One of the more expensive parts of the cameras built-in to smartphones is the lens system. That’s because lenses have to be made in an entirely different way to the electronic components that make up the rest of the phone.
In recent years, physicists have hoped to change this with a new type of “metalens” that can be carved onto a flat sheet of silicon dioxide or similar material. Metalenses consists of pillars of silicon that are each about the same size as the wavelength of light.
These pillars interact with light, causing it to bend and scatter in precisely controllable ways. So by arranging large numbers of pillars in periodic arrays, physicists can make them bend light in the same way as a conventional lens.
That paves the way for metalenses to be etched onto the same silicon chips that are otherwise used for capturing and processing images. In this scenario, expensive conventional lenses become entirely obsolete.
But attempts to create metalenses using light-based lithography have so far faltered. What’s needed is another way to make metalenses that is compatible with the large-scale manufacture of chips.
Enter Andrew McClung and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, who have demonstrated exactly this — a new way to make metalenses that is compatible with chip manufacture. They say their approach “has potential for widespread adoption in consumer electronics and imaging systems.” (MORE - missing details)